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pH is making me crazy!

patrick

patrick

I'm starting to move some of my plants into their final pots and I mixed up a batch of "dirt". Decided to test the pH with one of those small jobs you add a bit of dirt, then powder from a green capsule, some water--I use reverse osmosis filtered stuff, shake and wait a minute then compare colors.

My mix consists of five parts peat/top soil, one part humus and composted cow manure, one half part perlite, a quarter part worm casting and an eighth part organic lime.

The two extremes for colors is red for acidic and dark green for alkaline. A greenish/orange is neutral.

After I waited a couple of minutes for the test to run its course the color was so dark it was almost black! What he heck is causing my mix to test so high on the alkaline side?

Help please?:(
 
i was just surfing and it appears the recommendation would be to add more of the cow manure. don't take my word as gold, but if I were you i would add some manure to a small sample and retest the sample - see what happens.

-PP
 
Patrick,I've been told by a Master Gardener to let the composted maneure breath for 24 hours after you open the bag.I now let all my bagged soils breath before using.Lets all the gasses disipate.
 
I've read that some soil mixes won't test true until they blend or whatever for a while-until all the bio stuff gets growing etc.

Doesn't sound right that your tests are alkaline.
Usually with soil with as much organic stuff in it as you seem to have they go acid.
Peat etc. usually makes soil acid as it breaks down.
Most everything in your mix is organic.

Worm casings supposed to be PH7
Peat , humus = PH 3.6-7.5
Humus is considered a ph stabiliser a lot of times in the articles I've read.
Both manure and humus can be just about any PH depending on how broken down it is.
A lot of articles say use it to raise the acidity of soil.Others say it is pretty much neutral.
I use a mix of orchid bark,planter mix(composted forestry products) and perlite for my plants.
It takes a while to stablise the PH.
It used to always test acid but after a while it went close neutral by itself(6.5-7.5).
I don't test it anymore.
If my plants look messed up I might test it but otherwise I leave it alone.
You might just have to wait until your soil blends-micro organisms get to work.
 
Thanks guys.

I let the sample I took yesterday sit overnight and now it's in the 5.5 to 6.5 color range.

I'm going to lose the pH tester for a while.
 
teh purple penguins said:
i test my water, other than that i make sure the plants don't die.
Click to expand...

This. pH water & nutrient solution and that should be good enough. Unless you're just using really really shitty soil but that doesn't seem to be the case.

You could always switch over to coconut coir.....I guarantee you'll never look back.
 
Oh and you could have just got a good chunk of lime in your soil that you tested. Lime is really basic.
 
Thanks tcg. I'm going to let it set for a bit and see what happens. Still got a couple of weeks before the last frost date so I'm not in too big of a hurry.

Appreciate all the help.
 
Txclosetgrower said:
Oh and you could have just got a good chunk of lime in your soil that you tested. Lime is really basic.
Click to expand...

Best Jalapeno crop I ever had in dirt was when I threw a chunk of lime in. I had no idea what I was doing but this lime had been laying around for years and came from my Mom's old house where she used to garden. It was that or throw it away. I used no other fertilizer all year and had a couple of thousand pods from 14 plants. Plants were 4 ft tall and all they got was a couple of good initial waterings when they were 1st planted. Didn't give them anything else for the rest of the year. I'm going to try some lime again this year with my leftover container seedlings that have to go in the ground.
 
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